Shadow Kings Dark Ages MMORPG

Shadow Kings: Dark Ages is a F2P Castle Building MMO for browser developed by Goodgame Studios.

In Shadow Kings: Dark Ages players are the rulers of their own Castle in a fantasy land filled with dangerous orcs looking to pillage and destroy your settlements, by establishing a strong Castle completes with various buildings, fortifications and defences as well is training up your own personal army. You are able to take the battle to them and destroy the Shadow Camps that crop up all over the world or alternatively engage in PvP with other rival players to assert your dominance over a region.

Shadow Kings: Dark Ages is a browser-based free to play MMO that focuses on resource gathering, city building and Empire management, whilst initially the game begins with the player focusing on fighting the orc AI faction as they progress in level they will start to come under the scrutiny of other player rivals and begin to focus on PVP orientated gameplay.

Players are initially guided by a pop-up tutorial with the help of a number of different NPC characters that will guide the player on where to find different features as well as instructing them on which buildings to construct and helping them train their initial military units. This type of gameplay continues in some form as Quests, where the NPC’s continue to task the player with completing various objectives such as constructing a specific building, building up a certain amount of units, attacking different orc Shadow Camps and other tasks that will slowly, advance the player and introduce them to new features and mechanics. When players complete quests they gain XP and resources, XP will increase their level, which gives them access to more building and unit types as well as new features, whereas the resources allow them to advance their city.

There are four primary in game resources for players to earn, wood and stone are used for a number of different construction purposes and spent at the time of production, earned through Stone Quarries and Woodcutters. Food is a resource used up by military units every hour and so must continuously be replenished otherwise soldiers will begin to quit; food is gained from farms. Gold is the fourth resource that can be earned, typically as a tax from your populous, so the more houses a city has the more people it can hold and the more money can be gained; Gold is used for nearly all build actions and operations and so it the most often used resource. Aside from the four main resources there is a fifth premium resource in the form of gems, these are earned each time a players levels up or they can be bought in the game store using real money; they allow players to rush building/training projects and build some unique items and building upgrades.

Combat is most commonly against the AI and involves the player building up their army from various troops and sending them to attack a specified location; when they reach an enemy/rivals fortification they have the option of attacking it from the front, left flank or right flank; similarly with a players own city they must add defences to these three different locations should they come under attack. As well as troops players can also use tools to attack and defend, such as battering rams and catapults to aid an assault or tar pots and portcullis gates to help defending. Combat is automated and worked out by the computer who wins a battle based off their types of unit combinations and sheer numbers. After a battle the players receive a battle report to show the unit losses, if the attack player is successful then they earn a portion of the defending players resources!

PvP is the main focus of the game in the late game, by spending gems players are able to create their own guild/Alliance with other players and their cities, here Allies are able to lend military aid as well as sending resources to their companions who may need them. Later in the game players are also able to spread out their territory by building outposts, adding an extra level of combat to the game.